We each have a story. We each have a voice. And although our stories are unique, our desires are the same. We all want to smile with our entire body. Using my personal journey,let's start a forum where we can all meet to raise awareness - about ourselves as individuals and as a society. Bringing light to our world and creating a safe place for each of us to connect.
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."~ Marcel Proust.

I welcome all feedback and look forward to reading your comments. Please be respectful of everyone's voice. My intention is to create a safe, secure place where people can be completely vulnerable and express themselves fully without fear or inhibitions of being judged or criticized. I ask that you respond not react. Practice the art of mindfulness in your comments.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Stirring that Keeps Us Awake

Sometimes, in the dead of night, the
silence stirs me awake. Eyes open,
blinking to a thumping heartbeat, moving away from dreaming and into the
shadows of darkness. “Why am I awake?”
is always the first question, “Go back to sleep” is always the response. Resisting wakefulness makes sleep run further
away. Finally surrendering to my
stubborn mind, it wins and willfully opens the floodgates of thought. Waiting for sleep’s intruder to present
itself, I notice and pay attention, observing the thoughts playing in my
mind. Each minute the moving clock
ticks, my heartbeats grow faster and louder. Anxiously the persistent thought
repeats, “I’m still not sleeping! What is so pressing that must be handled right
now?”

Eventually my pulse slows and steadies,
my mind clears and the pressing issue finally reveals itself. 3AM isn’t an ideal time for problem
solving. Morning is always better when
all will be addressed. With that,
dreamland comes to the rescue and when it doesn’t there’s Xanax (yes, sometimes
I cave and take the easy route).

This night, when the intruder came, it
was expected. There were no questions about this episode. This plea for help,
this pooling ache, woke me in haunting stillness, and surprisingly I welcomed
it with open arms. Knowing this was an
exploration that deserved total attention.
Perhaps this time 3AM was a good time for problem solving? After all, it’s quiet and still.

A week had passed since my dearest friend
uttered her diagnosis: cancer - the “C” word.
Too loaded and unbearable of a term to fully process, we shorten it to
create less to deal with – and why wouldn’t we?
The mere thought of a diagnosis generates paralyzing panic (see my post
“The Higher Risk Society” for my brief cancer scare). Avoiding is simply easier
until the choice is no longer ours and we’re forced to confront our deepest
fears.

Our scariest moments often happen alone
when frightening thoughts are so consuming that even breathing becomes hard.
Those thoughts are the worst at 3am. The jump from one fear to the next,
spiraling down a dark abyss at lightening speed, until suddenly we slam into a
thought that makes our heart stop. “What is wrong with me?!? Why would I think
of that?” We berate our wandering minds for traveling to totally unnecessary
and gut-wrenching places. In a matter of
seconds our worries take us from headache to brain-tumor, from a sleepless
night to “Oh my god, I’m never sleeping again!”
No wonder we’d rather avoid words like cancer. Why give incentive
to create those monsters and free-fall into a pit of anguish?

We face our fears because dodging just
leads to being haunted by ourselves.
What resists persists. Avoiding
is a tactic that never works because our deepest fears must be heard,
acknowledged and understood. Only then
will they dissolve and release – and in the process we heal ourselves.

How do we understand our greatest
fear? When do we have the courage to
face ourselves?

Sometimes we have to reach a point of
life-threatening despair before we find the courage to move forward and step
directly in the muck. That breaking
point is different for everyone. The
amount we try to carry before we fall doesn’t predict strength. Strength comes
from noticing that the load is too heavy, rather than pushing through with
blinders on, trying to make it quickly to the other side.

“The things we may take for granted
someone else is praying for.” - unknown

It is when we fall and struggle to get up
that even the most devout atheist will approach God for help - whichever
version of God that may be. For me, God
doesn’t live in dogmatic scripture or in the clouds on a far-off throne.
Instead God is very close, as close as our own breath. My belief about God is
simple. The energy that created
everything, that aligns the stars and orbits the planets – that energy is part
of everyone and everything, including each one of us. That is what I term God. But sometimes I call it Source, the Higher
Self, Love or Light – all these terms adequately describe the indescribable -
the sensation of divinity.

That night the weight of the cargo I’d
been storing for years – the struggles with my mortality, of the “C” word, of
acquiring a life-threatening illness, made me feel weak. I was no longer strong
enough to lift it. My deepest, darkest
fears buried in the depth of my core were staring right at me, naked and
raw. My friend, in all her strength,
revealed this to me - without using words.

In a desperate plea for help, to face the
fears that had long been resisted, I turned to God for help. The heaviness sat on my chest left me gasping
and crying for air. It finally fell to
my feet and I used it as a step to lift myself up. As I inhaled, a voyage to the center of
myself reached within my heart and transcended the pain by experiencing supreme
love, grace, and….God. It happened
abruptly. The weeping stopped. Stepping into a vacuum of nothingness, the
silence swallowed me whole. I do not know if I ever sensed such vastness, felt
so insignificant and experienced such stillness simultaneously. I exhaled, closed my eyes peacefully and
finally fell asleep.

How does the old
adage go? God doesn’t slam a door in your face without opening a window of
opportunity? The trick is to be willing to close the door and open the
window. In the shadow of all that
sorrow, many lessons were unveiled. In a
period of mourning, I gave myself permission to feel…..everything - not only
pain and sadness, but also profound love, gratitude and connection. In my vulnerable state an inner union formed
that radiated outward. Connecting deeper
to myself, my family, my friends, even the people I barely knew. Without warning, life shifted.

The ancient mystics and spiritual gurus
all proclaim that we are made up of three entities: mind, body and spirit. When these entities CONSCIOUSLY merge we
reach bliss – an inner knowing that translates into ultimate peace. Most aren’t
aware of the inner dialogue going on between our minds and bodies. We believe our minds to be completely
separate and removed from our physiology but clearly this is not the case. Our bodies react to our thoughts. Public
speaking can make our palms sweat and hearts race. When we think of sex our
groins ache. Stress wreaks havoc to our emotional and physical lives – but how
much credit do we really give our mental thought patterns? Negative thinking,
our tight hold on anger and resentment, envy, guilt, shame – these thinking
patterns create uncomfortable experiences (both physically and mentally), by
changing our thinking we change our experience.Before we can change our thinking patterns, we first must understand
what our patterns are.

My main focus as a yoga instructor is to
teach mind-body awareness. Merging the
mind, body and spirit by connecting with the breath. Learning to listen to the subtleties by
paying attention and getting to know ourselves.
How do we gain insight to become more understanding and intimate with
ourselves?

We simply sit and listen. We watch the
thought patterns as if observant of our own mind and we begin to notice
trends. We explore and dig deep. We ask
questions and obtain answers. Then we
change.

Our body is a vehicle to understanding
ourselves, it’s not separate from our minds or our souls – all parts of
ourselves work together in a harmonious dance, lets wake-up and stop long enough to hear the music.

Through my friend's challenge, I’ve
journeyed within to find undiscovered secrets.
That stirring in the dead of night is there for my benefit, if only I’m
awake enough to notice. Can I accept and
appreciate instead of resist and fight or numb and ignore? When fears surface I’m given the opportunity
to explore and release rather than avoid and contain. Will the questions come
to me again at 3AM? I would be surprised
if they didn’t. But this time when they come,
there will be no resistance, this time I’ll be ready and willing to
listen.

4 comments:

Thank you. I listen to Pete and that's how I found your blog. I've read everything you've written for the last year or so and I've always found something to take away. I've never felt that any comment i could make would add anything. This time I feel any comment i make would add nothing. This time though, i feel compelled- for very personal reasons- to say thank you. Chris D.

About Me

Living fully as a mother, writer, yoga instructor and sacred activist, Valerie is an expressive student of life. She interweaves inspiration with liberation with the intent to unlock the, sometimes deeply hidden, wisdom of the heart.
Valerie admires her husband (Sirius/XM host & CNN contributor) Pete Dominick and adores their two daughters - Ava and Julia. Her mission is to spread smiles, love and happiness with the daring belief that life is meant to be lived – fully, completely and Joyously.